What’s a Cossack? A Cossack was a landowner, or group of people under a landowner, beginning in 14th century Russia and Ukraine, allowed relative freedom from the Tsars because they protected the frontiers. Also it may just refer to a Russian or Ukrainian soldier who was drafted by the Tsars or other rulers. I think. While I have a limited knowledge of history at best (Crusader Kings hurts my brain), I imagine that history buffs of all kinds will love Cossacks 3.

Side note: This game is definitely Mark from Peep Show’s favorite game.

Cossacks 3 focuses on battles in 17th and 18th century Europe. As far as RTSs go, this one looks impressively detailed. The graphics appear to be a mighty upgrade, with some very elaborate little soldiers and serfs and tons of cobblestones. I’m particularly impressed by the architecture.

It all looks very pretty, but I can’t really speak to how it plays. If you liked it before, hopefully this will be the upgrade you both need and deserve.

As per the press release, you should look forward to realistic physics and huge battles (some 10,000 units), as well as co-op play and 12 different playable nations.

It’ll be available on Windows, Mac, and Linux but we don’t know for how much yet.

probably HD graphics are cheaper if 3D… but that doesn’t matter, Blizzard for example was behind the curve in graphics since Diablo2, yet they made incredibly popular games… So the real question in case of Cossacks is the AI and the multiplayer, both somewhat lackluster in the original series.

I hope they add a good tutorial this time around, the previous games were unnecessarily difficult to learn.

A very good series though. Quite complex in it’s time, but most of it should be standard RTS by now.

The standout features for me were the games’ focus on organization, tactics and strategy. In most RTS games of similar nature you can win by sheer numbers, yet I don’t remember that being the case with the Cossacks games.

If they keep true to the original series, Cossacks 3 should offer a great deal of challenge. It will be interesting to see.